The ten-digit North American Numbering Plan (NANP) currently used by the United States and 19 other countries is rapidly being depleted. Management of this resource is impaired by a lack of uniform data. Under the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was given “exclusive jurisdiction over those portions of the North American Numbering Plan that pertain to the United States.” Pursuant to that authority, the FCC conducted a rulemaking that, among other things, addressed regular reporting on numbering resources used by United States telecommunications carriers.
The FCC appointed an agency, known as the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), to monitor numbering resources utilized by all telecommunications carriers using the resources and to project the dates of area code and North American Numbering Plan exhaust. In their duties, NANPA created a numbering utilization report that telecommunications carriers are to submit semi-annually. The report is known as the Numbering Resource Utilization/Forecast (NRUF) Report.
The NRUF Report includes a number of different forms that provide NANPA with information as to the usage of telecommunications allotted phone numbers. As understood in the telecommunications industry, each telecommunications carrier is allotted a certain number of phone numbers in blocks of 10,000, which is generally subdivided into ten blocks of a thousand. Ten-digit phone numbers include a (i) numbering plan area (NPA) (i.e., area code), which is three digits, (i) central office code, which is also three digits, and (iii) thousands digit block (i.e., the first digit of the last four digits of a phone number). Telecommunications carriers provide phone numbers to customers from these blocks of a thousand numbers. As a thousands block is filled, it is considered to be exhausted. Some thousands digit blocks become filled while others become empty depending on how the telecommunications carrier customer base changes. The telecommunications carrier reports the existing usage and forecasts future usage of the phone numbers in the NRUF Report.
One problem that exists with the NRUF Report is the time necessary to collect and process the information to report. Telecommunications carriers generally have many divisions, many central offices, thousands of thousands digit blocks, and millions of customers. Managing this information and reporting it can take several man-weeks for producing each NRUF Report. Another problem that exists is that there is no standard method for forecasting exhaustion of a thousands digit block.
In managing telephone numbers and usage thereof, telecommunications carriers generally maintain internal databases to track existing telephone number inventory. In addition, an industry group, known as Telcordia Routing Administration (TRA), operates a local exchange routing guide (LERG) database to inventory telephone numbers owned by each telecommunications carrier. The LERG database maintains other relevant information associated with the telephone numbers, which are generally stored as data records in blocks of a thousand, commonly known as thousands blocks. The relevant information includes status of the thousands blocks, such as whether the thousands blocks are pooled or portable. A common problem in the telecommunications industry is discrepancies within and between the telecommunications carrier managed and LERG databases. Typically, these discrepancies are determined by chance while reviewing records for other purposes. Alternatively, a visual inspection of the data records for comparison purposes are performed, but such a task is time consuming and is generally low priority, so errors in the telecommunications carriers' telephone number inventory perpetuate and increase over time. These inventory errors cause phone number management problems throughout the telecommunications industry.